


The Mediator

by soamazinghere



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 18:58:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soamazinghere/pseuds/soamazinghere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What if one day, those in the depths rise up against you?...Only their hope for a mediator is keeping the workers in check.” Everlark in a dystopian world based on Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mediator

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta sunfishdunes; thanks to ThirtySomething for pre-reading.
> 
> A few quotes in the story/summary were taken or adapted from Metropolis.
> 
> This story was written for Round 3 Day 4 (Iconic Movie Posters) of Prompts in Panem.

“Let me tell you a story,” Katniss begins. As always, I’m transfixed by her voice, by the ability of this small but fierce woman to command everyone’s attention. The cavernous room far beneath the Capitol is completely silent, even though there must be hundreds of people here.   

 

“It’s a story that my father used to tell me when I was a little girl. It’s the story of our people, of District 13.”

 

Katniss pauses to take a breath. She clasps her hands in front of her chest as she strains to look around the dimly-lit room. We’re all seated uncomfortably on the cold concrete floor of the large space, which was originally built to serve as an emergency bunker for wealthy citizens of the Capitol. These days, the underground catacombs are abandoned, or at least that’s what the citizens of the Capitol are taught. In reality, this is where the Capitol’s workers—their slaves—live. 

 

They’re the descendants of District 13. Almost no one in Panem even knows they exist.

 

Her steel-grey eyes find me near the front of the crowd. I hold her gaze as steadily as I can, attempting to send her the strength she’s searching for. She nods and smiles faintly before continuing her story.

 

“In the early days of Panem, our Capitol was surrounded by thirteen districts. We co-existed peacefully for years. But one day Panem’s leaders decided that they wanted the Capitol to be reborn, to become the grandest, most beautiful city in the world. A place where everyone could have wealth, and education, and a life without poverty.”

 

“The men and women who conceived of the new Capitol, however, couldn’t build it. The task was too great. They asked the districts to provide the labor to create their new city.”

 

“But they wouldn’t promise the districts anything in return for helping build their city, so we refused, and a civil war resulted. Twelve of the districts were defeated. The thirteenth, our home, was destroyed, as an illustration of the Capitol’s power. Panem’s leaders said that everyone within the district was killed.”

 

Katniss walks forward, gesturing around the room at the slumping, downtrodden figures staring raptly up at her. “But we all know that wasn’t true. Our ancestors weren’t killed. They were brought here.”

 

At this point in the story, just as every time I’ve heard her tell it, the crowd starts to get restless. Their anger begins to rise. I look around me at their tense faces and clenched fists. Yet they still remain silent, waiting for Katniss to continue, almost as if they haven’t heard her story hundreds of times before.

 

“ _We_ built the great city that sits above us. We are the living food for their machines—we feed them with our own flesh, our own blood.” Katniss holds her arms out in front of her as her voice rises insistently, echoing off the walls of the cavern. “ _These hands_ built the Capitol, but we know _nothing_ of the dream that conceived it!”

 

The room erupts into shouts at these words. I remain silent, wondering what the people of the Capitol would think if they knew what was occurring beneath their feet. If the lives of the workers here would matter at all. If the unrest would frighten them into action.

 

Katniss stands completely still at the front of the room, hands at her sides, as she waits for the cries to quiet down. She stares at the ceiling blinking away the unshed tears that I see shining in her eyes. When the room falls silent once more, she lowers her head and continues.

 

“My father told me this: ‘Head and hands need a mediator. The mediator between head and hands must be the heart.’”

 

A tall young man in the front row interrupts Katniss’s speech angrily. I’ve never seen this happen before, not for as long as I’ve been in District 13. It’s a sign of the increasingly desperate situation among the workers here. “ _Where’s_ our mediator, Katniss?” he shouts.

 

Katniss looks down at the young man, a pained expression on her face. “Wait for him, please,” she begs. “I’m sure he’ll come!”

__________

 

I will never forget the day that I first saw Katniss. I’m sure she doesn’t remember seeing me, though.

 

I was sitting in a small, neglected park in the Capitol, near my family’s home. Although it was summer, the park felt cool because it sat in the shade of three nearby skyscrapers. The flowering trees that I was absorbed in sketching were dwarfed by the towering buildings. 

 

My concentration was interrupted by a screeching, scraping sound. I looked up to see a large metal door at the base of one of the skyscrapers being forced open from the inside. I’d seen those doors all over the Capitol, but never in my life had I seen one open. The attention of everyone in the park was immediately diverted to that door, and to the form of the young woman straining against it, forcing it to move.

 

The woman was wearing non-descript and worn-looking clothing—a grey shirt tucked into matching grey pants. Her long black hair was pulled into a simple braid that hung down her back. She stepped out of the doorway, shielding her eyes from the sun with one hand. It was then that I noticed how pale and sallow her skin looked, as if she was rarely exposed to the daylight.

 

A group of children, wearing small matching versions of the same grey clothing, followed her into the park. They looked fearfully at the people sitting there, and clung desperately to the arms and legs of the young woman with the braid. I glanced around the park—the other people who had, like me, been enjoying the beautiful summer day were gawking openly at the strange group that had just appeared before us. 

 

“Don’t be afraid,” I heard her tell them reassuringly. She moved a few steps away from the large metal door, dragging the children along with her. She looked back and forth at the buildings, the trees, the people. The children did the same, with undisguised looks of wonder on their faces. “These people are just like us. They’re your brothers and sisters,” she said to them.

 

Soon, though, the peaceful quiet of the park was interrupted by shouting and the sounds of running feet. I spotted a group of Peacekeepers entering the park and running toward the small group. The woman attempted to shield the children with her body, but soon one of the Peacekeepers grabbed her by the arms and dragged her away from them. 

 

The woman was held, struggling, a few feet away from the children as two other Peacekeepers ushered the group back through the door from which they emerged. “Don’t hurt them!” she screamed. Her body surged against the Peacekeeper restraining her; another rushed over to help so that the woman didn’t break free.

 

She looked around the park frantically, noticing that most of the people who had been sitting there were now nervously edging away. I remained frozen in place, unable to look away from her or from the scene playing out before me. She caught my eyes and fixed her gaze on me so intently that I couldn’t look away. “Don’t abandon us!” she cried, as if she was desperately trying to give me a message. “We’re your brothers and sisters!”

__________

 

The room clears out after the meeting ends, but I stay to wait for her. When she and I are the last two remaining, she makes her way to me and sinks to her knees in front of where I sit.

 

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore, Peeta,” she whispers, her eyes brimming with tears. Katniss looks down at her hands, which are clasped nervously in her lap. I reach forward and pull her to my chest as she begins to sob.

 

“Shh,” I say into her ear. “Everything’s alright. I’m here.” In the beginning, whenever she doubted herself like this, I didn’t hesitate to tell her that she could do it. I always encouraged her to continue; I assumed that’s what she wanted. But I’ve spent enough nights holding her when she has nightmares, and listening to her weep quietly when she thinks I’m sleeping, that I don’t know what’s the right thing to do anymore.

 

She was forced into this role she plays, trying to simultaneously inspire and placate the people of District 13. I don’t know the whole story as to why she took on that role—I assume it has something to do with her father—but I know she isn’t comfortable with it. She’s clearly committed to her people, to their plight, but at the same time she wishes she didn’t play such a central part.

 

Katniss takes a few deep breaths to regain her composure before she removes herself from my arms, sitting back on her heels. She closes her eyes and swallows. “I just…” Her voice is shaky; she looks away from me and clenches her jaw before continuing. “I feel like I’m losing my faith. Where is this mediator my father told me about? You told me no one up there even knows we exist. So _how_ is he supposed to find us?”

 

I look away. I don’t have any response for her. Katniss has lived her entire life under the worst possible circumstances—laboring underground for the benefit of a city that doesn’t even acknowledge her existence. Of course her people hope for a better life. They were raised to believe that someone would come and set them free without the need for war or bloodshed. They pray to their god that they don’t have to live their entire lives working underground. 

 

But Katniss can see that the story she tells, promising her people a better future, isn’t enough anymore. The people of District 13 aren’t willing to wait much longer. As every day, every year passes without the arrival of their mediator, they lose hope. Katniss is losing hope.

 

“I don’t think I can be their voice anymore. How can I stand in front of everyone and reassure them that things will be better when I’m not even sure _I_ believe that’s true?” she cries, her voice growing increasingly desperate. As her voice rises, it echoes off the walls, filling the space with the sounds of her anguish.

 

So I do the only thing I can think of to comfort her. I lean forward and press my lips to hers gently but firmly, trying to remind her that I still love her. And that I’m not going to force her to do this anymore if she can’t.

 

Her body shudders, but she wraps her arms around my waist, returning the kiss with fervor. Suddenly she breaks away and grasps my face in her hands, looking at me wildly. “It’s you, isn’t it?” she demands.

 

“What do you mean?” I respond, confused.

 

“Our mediator,” she says insistently, squeezing my hands in hers. “You come from the Capitol. But you choose to live with us. _You_ could be our mediator.” Hope shines in her eyes as she gazes up at me.

 

I’m about to tell her that, no, I’m not and never could be their mediator, when I’m stopped by the look on her face. And I realize that it’s not just hope that I see there; it’s exhaustion and misery as well. She wants this to end, her role in leading and motivating the people of District 13. The arrival of a mediator would mean that she could finally rest. 

 

So I don’t know whether Katniss truly believes that I’m the mediator that her father spoke of, or if she just _wants_ to believe that I am. And there are so many reasons why it shouldn’t be me, things about me that Katniss doesn’t know—who my family is, why I left the Capitol—that I should refute her notion right away.

 

But when I see this woman, who I’ve come to know and love so well over the past weeks, on the verge of a losing herself and breaking down, I can’t bring myself to crush her hopes. I’d do anything for her—including being her mediator.

 

I look down at her and smile, cradling her cheek in my hand. “If that’s what you want, Katniss.” She begins weeping—tears of joy, I assume—as she turns her face into my hand and kisses the palm.

 

“He’s finally come,” she sobs, looking at the ceiling. She lowers her head and looks me directly in the eye, wiping her tears with her sleeve. “You’ve finally come. Thank you.”

 

She pulls me to her and whispers one last wish into my ear. 

 

“You have to free us, Peeta.”


End file.
